


Imouto

by Resy_Lesy



Category: All Elite Wrestling
Genre: Fluff, Gen, There's a hint of Golden Lovers, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:33:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26086513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resy_Lesy/pseuds/Resy_Lesy
Summary: Full Gear has just ended, and no one has heard from Kenny. Riho refuses to let that stand.
Relationships: Kenny Omega and Riho (professional wrestling)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	Imouto

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the first two pages of this on November 10th, 2019, directly after Full Gear. I finished it today, August 26th, 2020. I'm good at my hobbies.

_Ba-bump, bump, ba-bump_.

“Go away.”

_Ba-bump, bump, ba-bump_.

“I _said_ go away!”

His voice cracks, and Riho’s heart breaks in turn. But she isn’t going to run away. She has waited eight years, eight years of forming her own career and following his, and he hers in turn. Eight years of thinking the few times they tagged had just been that - tag titles, won and done.

The call had been a surprise. Her presence shouldn’t be.

Riho knocks again.

Kenny yanks the door open, and oh, he looks _terrible_ , with straw-hair and scarred skin and the remnants of blood under bandages. His eye is already swelling, but the venomous words die on his tongue when he recognizes her face. “ _I - Riho-san - you shouldn’t -_ ” he’s babbling in English, but Riho knows Kenny well enough to put a stop to his words before he spirals.

She holds up her hand to stop him, clutching a bag of sweets. She’d scoured the streets of Baltimore during her stay, and after a time found a little hole-in-the-wall shop. It was right up her alley, all cute and pink and full of flowers despite the season. It sold her favorite mochi, and Kenny’s too.

Riho remembers the first time Kenny had treated her to mochi after a match, with permission from Sakura-sensei. He’d smiled at her, and Riho had never forgotten the way he had shone in the sun. A walking angel.

A shattered angel stands before her.

“I brought mochi,” she says, and suddenly feels quite out of her depth, if not just a tad embarrassed. Kenny stares at her, all fight leaving him as he slumps against the doorframe.

“Who sent you?”

Riho holds her head high. “I sent myself. I am no longer a child, but a champion -” she falters. Using _Omega_ is too formal. Calling him _Kenny_ is too familiar. Reminding him she stands a champion while he suffers to stand is too cruel.

Kenny chuckles, low and rueful, in his throat. She recognizes the sound - it was the laugh he used when Ibushi-san had made a particularly good point that Kenny couldn’t refute. She hadn’t known what they were talking about, having been too young to understand, but she feels a little bit more informed, now.

Kenny kicks the door open and tilts his head to usher her into the room. Riho darts under his outstretched arm and into the room, tossing herself and the bag onto the secondary bed. Kenny’s is messy, with sloppy covers and strewn pillows. The door locks behind them.

Riho looks to the TV. No Undertale.

Instead, he’s rewatching the match.

“That’s not healthy, you know,” she chides him, gently. He had held her when she cried after she lost her title, back in Japan. She has a new one now, but that is all the more reason to comfort him. “Not so soon, at least.”

Kenny flops down face-first onto his bed. He takes a moment before rolling over, and brings a pillow over his eyes. “Did anyone see you come here?”

Riho rolls her eyes. “I am an _idol_ ,” she says it in English, one of the few words she knows. “I am used to far worse.”

He lifts the pillow up and cracks an eye open at her. Riho sighs and shakes her head. Kenny covers his face again.

She tries for diplomacy. “Have you talked to anyone?”

“You shouldn’t be taking care of me.”

Something in her snaps. “ _Kenny-san_!”

He winces and brings the pillow down to his chest, clutching it in his arms. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right,” he concedes. “Shut up and suffer ‘cause you can’t even win with the best move you have -” Kenny cuts himself off with a wild, choked sob, a manic laugh twisting its way out of his throat.

Riho doesn’t hesitate to rush to his side, leaving the bag of mochi abandoned on the other bed. She settles herself next to his shoulder, and her petite form is just dainty enough to fit in-between his large frame and the edge of the bed.

A small titter leaves Riho as she remembers how _teensy_ Kenny used to be, but she swallows it down. Riho lays a hand on Kenny’s curls, and he turns his head away. He clutches the pillow like it’s a lifeline, and even Riho’s endless grace isn’t enough to keep from commenting on the way his shoulders shake.

“Oh, _Ken-chan_ ,” she breathes, the old nickname coming back in the heat of empathy. “You’re _crying_.”

He brings the pillow back over his tear-stained face. “Thanks for reminding me.”

Riho pets at his hair, uncertainty making her hand tremble. “I -”

Kenny’s voice is deathly quiet. “Don’t.”

“I must,” Riho states firmly. “You are as family to me. I cannot stand to see you like this.”

He brings the pillow back down, a shuddering gasp leaving his throat. Kenny meets her eyes for a moment, before looking back down at the bed. Riho has never seen those baby blues turn so grey before. Her heart cracks.

“You have done so much for me,” she says, and falls silent a moment later. “I do not know if you remember, but back in Japan -”

“Mochi,” he says quietly, and moves to sit up. Riho lets him, and a moment later, cuddles into his side. Kenny wraps his right arm around her, and uses his left to wipe his face dry. Riho hopes, vainly, that her presence is a comfort, and not a burden. She knows who she is not.

“Mm.” The crowd roars on the TV, and Kenny squeezes his eyes shut. A few more tears fall, and Riho scrambles for the remote, shutting the TV off with prejudice. “That’s enough of that,” she mutters to herself, before curling back into his side. “When I lost, when I won - mochi to make me feel better, mochi to celebrate. A present from -” Riho shuts her mouth, an embarrassed blush creeping up her neck. It had been a child’s passing fantasy, to think of Kenny as an older brother to her. She should focus on comforting him.

“A present for my _imouto_ ,” Kenny finishes, and Riho’s head snaps up, a wide smile breaking across her features.

“You remembered!”

“Of course I did. How could I forget about my baby sister?” He gives her side a quick squeeze with the flat of his forearm. Riho, in turn, throws her arms around his neck in a bear hug.

Kenny grunts, and Riho recoils in horror, her hands coming up to cover her mouth. “I’m so sorry!”

He’s laughing now, which is better than crying in Riho’s estimate, and then he levels her with an even stare. Riho suddenly feels like she’s twelve again, young and inexperienced and wanting the approval of her older brother. Riho sends him the same nervous smile she did all those years ago, the one she used after a training session and was waiting for his carefully considered input. Kenny breaks a second later and ducks his head, giggling. “Don’t be. I needed that.” Kenny pauses and amends, “both the kick in the pants _and_ the hug.”

Riho cocks her head, her hair falling over her shoulder. “Do you feel better, then?”

Kenny deflates like a popped balloon. “No. But you don’t need to hear that.”

Riho shuffles to sit across from Kenny, who draws his knees to his chest. She sits on her knees and heels, smoothes out the skirt of her dress, and holds out her hand to Kenny. “But I want to. I want to support my _onii-san_.”

“ _Imouto_.” He takes her hand, rough with many scars and many more years of hard work. But he’s gentle with her, as if he forgets how hard she can hit. Kenny doesn’t say anything else, but Riho feels a little bit more informed, now, if the shaking of his hand is anything to go by.

In the quiet of the hotel room, they let his tears fall.

An eternity later, Riho whispers “I’ll get the mochi,” and slips from the bed.

Kenny murmurs a thank-you as Riho passes him his share, before a moue of surprise leaves him. “You remembered my favorite kind!”

“Of course I did,” Riho demurs, reseating herself across from him. Her eyes sparkle as they meet Kenny’s across the bed. “How could I forget something so important about my _onii-san_?”

He chuckles at her teasing and pops a mochi into his mouth, before making a face.

“Is your jaw okay?” Riho asks, carefully shredding her mochi into pieces before daintily placing one on her tongue. The thought of that gold chain still makes her shiver.

They speak as one. “It’s terrible!”

Kenny makes a show of it, flapping his hands and gagging as he leans over the bed and spits into the trash-can. Riho catches flashes of speech - “garbage, absolutely disgusting, piece of _shit_ ” - before tuning Kenny out and reaching past him for a tissue. She spits in the tissue before tossing it in the trash, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

Kenny wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and meets her eyes. “If you paid _anything_ for that, they robbed you.”

Riho sends him a guilty smile. “It was cheap.”

“Clearly!”

It’s all it takes to send them both into a fit of giggles.

“I really missed this, you know,” Kenny says, once they’ve both calmed down. He’s grinning at her, and Riho is in awe at the boyish joy that shines from his face amidst the burgeoning injuries. She’s unable to resist sending him an equally sunny one back. “Just, y’know, hangin’ out.”

Riho laughs and balls up the both of their remaining mochi in its bag before tossing it underhanded into the trash. “I’ve missed you too,” - a sudden, sleepy yawn breaks its way through her throat - “Ken-chan.” Her eyes widen, and Riho covers her mouth with her hands again. “Oh, excuse me!”

The side of Kenny’s mouth quirks up, and he nudges her knee with his sockéd foot. “You should go and get some sleep, _imouto_. It’s not like you didn’t have your own match tonight.”

A wave of bone-deep exhaustion rolls over Riho as the memories come flooding back. Being up since six in the morning to prepare. Defeating Sakura-sensei. Watching Kenny get battered. Running through Baltimore in a fray, just to find something to make him feel better. Another yawn threatens to leave her, and Riho shakes her head to fight it down. Her unwavering loyalty burns in her heart, right next to the ache to sleep. “And leave you all alone? How can I do that to my _onii-san_?”

Kenny leans forward and crushes her in a hug, and Riho gently wraps her arms around his beaten back. He pulls away, and knocks the back of his hand against her shoulder. “Go,” he says. “or I’ll carry you to your hotel room, and never let you live it down, _imouto_.”

A wild, tired giggle leaves her, and Riho nods, slipping from the bed and stretching. “But, still, _onii-san_ -”

“Don’t worry, Ri-chan. I’ll call someone. I promise.”

Riho checks the clock as she stands, and gasps. It’s past three!

Which means that it is the early evening in Japan.

Riho sends him a brief smile as she heads for the door, and unlocks it with a soft click. She double checks the pockets of her dress to make sure she still has her belongings, before turning the light off at the doorway. “Sleep well, _onii-san_.”

The light of his phone illuminates Kenny’s bruised face. “You too, _imouto_. You too.”

Riho shuts the door as the speaker on his phone crackles to life. For the first time in the entire evening, she feels at peace.


End file.
